Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Wed, 24 Nov 2010

SnOMG!!1! update

A friend linked to this story, which is a bit clearer (and more fact-based) on why Seattle has such a hard time with snow:

Why Can't We Handle Snow?

Posted at 12:12 permanent link category: /misc

SnOMG!!1!

So, Monday of this week, we got a bit of snow. Maybe 5 inches, if I read the NOAA report right. Nothing much, right? A little plow action, some sand and salt, voila.

Not so, of course. Seattle is famously inept at handling things like this. After Snowpocalypse 2008, a lot of people got very angry, words were said, mayors were elected, things were promised, etc.

Why is Seattle so bad at snow? To read all the responses on Facebook and website comments, you'd have to believe that every other snowy location breeds these amazing snow-uber-drivers. They can handle it, and sheesh, why are Seattleites so bad at driving in the white stuff? It's not so easy as that. Other places that get lots of snow probably do engender better driving skills on slippery stuff, but much more importantly, they know how to deal with it on an infrastructural level: they have plows and salting trucks, and those suckers roll at the slightest drop of a six-pointed flake. Seattle, on the other hand, has a small handful of plows (despite promises this would be Seriously Changed) and sanding/salting trucks, and only in the last year or two even grudgingly admitted that salt was ok. Getting those things to roll is apparently a major challenge, even when we've had a week of warning that snow was coming. How do I know? The whole damn city was shut down on Monday. There were a few inches of snow on the ground. I have friends who spent 8 hours stuck in traffic or on busses, trying to finish a trip that normally takes 20 minutes, or maybe an hour with heavy traffic. Plows were clearly not on the ball. There was no plowing or salt/sand on I-5. Bridges were not prepped for the cold. It's not that Seattle drivers can't deal with snow. Most of them can. It's that Seattle can't deal with snow, and that leaves drivers out (literally) in the cold. No one can drive on ice, not when there are hills involved. Add into that mixture a solid handful of California transplants who've never seen snow before (or the odd clueless Washington native) and mess it up for everyone else, and you've got a disaster.

Anyway, my personal story is a mixture of vexation and victory, and I wanted to share it.

Mid-day Monday, it looked like things were getting better, and I decided I'd try to head out after working from home for the morning. I got in the truck (my bicycle being out of commission with a busted shifter), put it in gear, and spent the next five minutes fruitlessly spinning one of the tires: the parking brake was stuck on, and the free right wheel got all the power from the differential. I feared this might happen, and after some intense frustration at my predicament, sent a text to the person I'd been intending to meet for lunch, and dejectedly went back inside.

In the back of my head, I was plotting: how will I get out and about if I need to? I actually walked down to the store on Monday to get some groceries, and ingredients for the chestnut stuffing traditionally made in my family, and which I'll be sharing with friends on Thursday. I made use of my Yak Trax, which I bought after Snowpocalypse 2008, and hadn't ever really used. They worked delightfully, and I'm quite happy with them. So, walking: check.

However, I don't live walking distance from much. A grocery store, a handful of restaurants, a convenience store or two, a gas station. Higher speed transport was still in order. Still is in order, for that matter.

The truck is, honestly, out of the question until a bunch more melting happens. It's rear-wheel-drive only, and has terrible tires on it in any case. Its only saving grace is ABS, so I wouldn't necessarily lock the tires up, but I would still rear-end someone due to no traction. Even with a couple hundred pounds of stuff in the bed, it's more likely to spin the rear tires than go anywhere.

Normally, I'd lever the studded snow tires onto my bicycle, and pedal off without a second thought. That's why I have those tires. Unfortunately, late last week, my shifter gave up the ghost, and so the bicycle is now a single-speed until the new shifter arrives. Since I took the shifter off, that speed is the highest gear, which makes riding in a slow speed environment like snow pretty much a non-starter.

Finally, yesterday, I gave in to my frustration and put the snow tires on the bike anyway. I threaded the shift cable back through its run, and left the head pressing on the end of the cable housing at the handlebars. Using the thank-god-I-got-this-thing third-hand tool (seriously, if you work on bikes at all, you need one of these), I carefully clamped the now-immobile shift cable in place so that the rear derailleur was stuck in 6th gear. Naturally, I removed the front shifter and converted it to single-speed front about a month ago, so this was the only option.

With my bike now stuck permanently in 6th gear (until I get a new shifter, anyway), and equipped with snow tires, what did I do? If you guessed, "Went back inside," you'd be right. But it didn't last.

In order to make our traditional stuffing, which is based on chestnuts, I still needed to get some chestnuts. There's a schmancy brand of chestnuts from France that come pre-peeled, saving one about 5 hours of burnt fingers and misery, and I wanted to get some of those. They're spendy, but I figured I liked my fingers unburnt, so they're worth it. The only problem? The only store that carries them locally is Whole Foods. Trader Joes has some chestnuts that might be the right thing, but when I called, they were down to one 4 oz package. I need 2 lbs.

I had fixated in my mind on the Whole Foods on Westlake, which is normally about a 35 minute ride from my house. In the snow, it would have been well over an hour, and to get there would involve some ferocious hills. It was hard to justify making the ride all that way.

Out of curiosity, I did a quick search to see if there were a nearer Whole Foods store -- what did I spy, but the one in Ravenna! I had completely forgotten about it! I never go that way, and why would I (normally) want anything to do with such a spendy store? I didn't want the chestnuts to sell out (a thing which happens frequently around Thanskgiving time), and it was only 7 pm. The bike was ready. What was holding me back?

Nothing! I pulled on some extra clothes, packed yet more clothes into the pannier, and headed out. I'm glad I packed those extras: according to my thermometer, it was 22° F when I left the house, and 19° F when I got home, and the winter-weight motorcycle gloves I brought along were actually kind of inadequate to the task. Still, I made it to Whole Foods without any problem (discovering a new and very useful route along the way), got my chestnuts, snapped a quick "I made it!" picture, and headed home.

The trip took about 45 minutes each way. I have to say, there's something fiercely delightful about riding through the snow on a bicycle, with all the flashing LED lights going crazy. The snow tires mostly kept me going, with one incident on the 92nd street overpass over I-5 where some slush nearly got the better of me, but I was able to stick a leg out and slide slowly to a stop without falling. Climbing icy hills with the snow tires is still a surreal experience, with about as much grip as I expect on dry pavement. Only the uneven rutted surface of the snow gives any clue that anything unusual is going on. And, in this case, being stuck in 6th gear for hills I normally would have taken in 2nd or 3rd.

So although I wasn't able to regain all the transportational freedom I'd have liked (never made it out to see my lunch date), at least I've got a viable option. Now I just hope that the weather predictions are right, and Thanksgiving day is a lot warmer. It'd be nice to be able to get out and about.

Posted at 11:30 permanent link category: /misc

Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.